Skin
by Monamourz
Summary: Romano reflects on his relationship.


Adelaide has soft skin. It runs particularly attractively over her shoulder blades; it's such a secret, strange place to hide such an attractive feature.

Romano runs his fingers over it, considering. The moonlight streaming in through the window dances across the fan of blonde hair that is, for once, still and resting on a pillow. It can't quite catch her face, but it illuminates the barest outline, and he smiles at the tilt of her ski-slope nose and the fullness of her lips.

She really is exquisitely gorgeous when she's sleeping. Awake, Adelaide is like fire; she whirls and storms and burns and leaves everyone in her wake blinking and dazed and fearful of the next encounter. Being involved with her is like being involved with a hurricane; she's all power and unanticipated wildness and she only grows more so. When they first started this relationship, Romano was, at times, almost afraid to go places with her. Adelaide did things like drag him to the mountains, where humanity hadn't set foot in several hundred years, and force him to swim with her in freezing rivers and climb rocks. There were several memorable occasions where she made him cling to her back as she climbed up trees or scrambled up canyon walls. The view at the top would have been magnificent if not for the fact that he had been nursing a wounded male ego.

Romano snorts a little at the memory and then immediately silences when Adelaide shifts a little, frowning slightly in her sleep before she relaxes with a sigh. A minute later she mumbles something and turns on her side, throwing one leg out so that it lands haphazardly over Romano's. He can't help the smile that grows on his face. Adelaide has incredibly long legs, tanned and strong from hours of running around and jumping on other nations and climbing and kicking. She's impossibly active and it's best represented by her legs. Once, when Romano had tried tickling her, she's kicked him in the stomach on reflex. He'd shot backward into the wall and bled internally, prompting him to cough up blood for a few days and feel miserable until he healed.

This had been tempered by a horrified and extremely apologetic Adelaide, who showered him with gifts and showed up at his house wearing a variety of ridiculously attractive outfits (although her impression of the Pope had left him entirely turned off) in an attempt to make him forgive her.

Funny, how internal bleeding led to dating.

He runs a finger down the leg that is tangled with his and hums softly. They're both completely naked and he's still tingling from earlier that night, when Adelaide swung her legs over him so she was straddling him, all lean lithe muscle and with a swoop of golden hair draped over her shoulder that fell down to touch his bare chest and brushed it very slightly. She always had a smile on her face when they engaged in sex; it ranged from a smirk of satisfaction when she made him more vocal than he'd intended to a full-blown grin, teeth worrying her bottom lip because she was feeling so many things she couldn't contain them all.

She reminds him of Spain's horses. He remembers being young and watching Spain climb on horses with silk ribbons woven into their names and tails, the saddle and bridle heavy with jewels and gold, the hanging decorations and armor glittering and shining with thousands of colors, and watching these horses flash and dance, muscles sleek and smooth, responding effortlessly to every little motion Spain made.

Adelaide is all hidden muscle and power, too, and Romano wonders if it's conceited to think of himself as her Spain, but only Romano knows what to say to calm her down, or to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. And yes, he admits he's been sliding jewels and gold and fancy things onto her; her closet has been filled with only the best Italian brands and he gives her jewelry that shows off her rich skin and hair. She's so young and wild, he thinks, running his hand down her thigh and feeling the muscles under his fingertips. She's so full of everything she doesn't even know what to do with herself.

Her hair never ceases to amaze him, either. It's the color of wheat, but silky and thick. She kept it short when she was younger, but lately Adelaide has let it grow out to hang somewhere around her waist. Romano likes short hair, but he likes long hair even better; he loves how she can spin around and it will follow in a rich half-circle of gold. He's been teaching her to dance, and yesterday he got home later than usual and found Adelaide in the living room, furniture pushed to the sides, eyes closed as she spun and leapt and danced with wild abandonment, her hair following her every movement. He took her on a picnic the week before and the same thing had happened; they'd fallen asleep together, but he woke up alone, and he watched Adelaide with his eyes half-opened as, like a spectral fairy, bare-foot and wearing a white cotton dress, she whirled across the meadow and back, her legs and eyes flashing, dancing to a beat only she could hear while her hair caught the sunlight and absorbed it.

Later, panting, she collapsed beside him, and he collected her hair and braided it, intertwined with flowers that were scattered around them. She had pressed her hands against him when he was done, a funny half-smile on her lips, and he had eased down to the grass and she had climbed on top of him and showered soft, gentle kisses over his face and jaw and collarbone. Then, fearless, unconcerned with anyone else, she had rocked back on her knees and stripped her dress off in one clean movement, and the sun had caught her skin and hair and vivid blue eyes, and it had seemed like everything was warm and soft and impossibly bright as he was the one to guide her down onto her back.

Now, the moment is reversed; silver moonlight is spilling in to replace the sun, but Adelaide is ever unchanged, still lovely and larger-than-life, still impossible to catch but so tantalizing he can't help but try. He is still stroking her hair, ponderously, when one blue eye opens and watches him. "'Mano," she whispers lazily, "What're you doing?"

"Thinking." His answer is simple and calm. Other nations would bother him about that one word ("Thinking? About what?" "You can think? Hahahah!") but Adelaide curves her lips into a sleepy smile and says, "Ah."

"About you," he adds after a minute.

Her eyes close and she curls closer to him. "You'd _better_ not be thinking about anyone else," she yawns with a smile, and presses her face into his arm. "Come sleep. It's cold. Wanna cuddle."

Romano slides lower until she can tangle all their limbs together and her face is pressed into his neck. "Love you, Romano," she murmurs as she drifts off.

"Love you more," he says, and feels the giggle of satisfaction that vibrates through her throat before he drifts off, the moonlight illuminating them both.

/AN

Uh, yeah. Went for a different writing style here! VERY different. It was also much shorter. Explanations…

*Adelaide is Fem!America. I changed a ton of things around to fit my headcanon. I imagine Fem!America as having longer hair that's really thick. I also despise the names people usually give her (I'm pretty sure "Allison" wasn't a name England would have chosen when he found her. I may be wrong, but it just doesn't seem like that name would be popular around then), and Abigail is kinda overused. I also imagine her as being a little bit softer than Alfred, personality-wise, except for the times when she just has violent explosions of energy and wildness.

*Romano is a bit OOC, I think, but I can't honestly tell. I started the story and it wrote itself, basically. I've never written Romano being willingly in love for a while, and never with Fem!America, so I have no clue how he'd behave.

*This is a weird style for me. Lots of description with very little backstory is SO HARD for me to do. I had to chop huge pieces out that just didn't fit the style. So if any tenses aren't correct, sorry!

*Again…no beta, and I don't feel like going back to check it, so forgive me for any mistakes.

*I'll have a Germany/America piece up soon, methinks. It's about halfway done.

Thanks for reading!


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